


Case Study:  Iron Man

by Dillian



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 1930's, AU, After-Effects Shock Treatment, F/M, Human Experimentation, M/M, Memory Loss, Mental Institutions, Non-Consensual, Psychotic Tony, Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-21 00:45:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story that happens when you try to read stories about victim-Tony, and watch documentaries about humans being used as test subjects, at the same time.</p><p>That actually happened quite a lot here in America, just a generation or two ago.  Helpless populations used to be subjected to horrible treatment in the name of "science" and "progress".  This is completely wrong, and should never happen.  Please do not let the fact that I am using it as a total excuse for porn here, to make you think I don't understand that.  But that is what this story is.  It's basically pure victim-Tony, only with his tormentors thinking they have a good excuse for the victimization.</p><p>AU, set at a psychiatric hospital in the 1930's:  Tony's a long-term patient, victim of too many shock treatments ordered by the last wunderkind doctor on the staff, Dr. Thor Odinssen.  Now a rival of Dr. Odinssen's, Dr. L:aufeyson, thinks he can reverse the damage with his own therapy.  It is less orthodox than the last one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A New Doctor on Ward 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One more "miracle cure" comes to the back wards, and naturally the doc needs a nurse and a couple of orderlies to help him carry it out.

_“It was strange, here I was among all those people, and at the same time I felt as if I were looking at them from some place far away, the whole place seemed to me like a deep hole and the people down in it like strange animals, like... like snakes, and I've been thrown into it... yes... as though... as though I were in a snake pit... Later, weeks later, I understood. I remembered once reading in a book that long ago they used to put insane people into pits full of snakes. I think they figured that something which might drive a normal person insane, might shock an insane person back into sanity. Did you ever hear of that?”_  
– Character, Virginia Cunningham, _The Snake Pit_ , 1948

 

**_The Avengers_ , _Thor_ , and _Iron Man_ , and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Incorporated. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.**

 

Well there was never any doubt in my mind why they picked Iron Man to do the procedure on, because that guy had no friends, no family, nobody to care if anything happened to him. That's the kind of guy these doctors always pick. Because what they do is always so experimental, and they don't want anybody around that'll complain if something goes wrong.

The story with Iron Man: He was already here when I got here. They said he'd fought in the Great War, or he'd talked about fighting anyway. When he first got here. Before all the shock they gave him in the '20's, which pretty well erased what was left of his mind. He never did give 'em a name, is what I heard. Called himself “Iron Man”, so that's what they called him. And the last hotshot new doctor here, Dr. Odinssen, was sure he could reverse the psychosis with shock therapy, but the thing with shock, is either it works big, or it's a complete disaster. Ward 9 is full of guys like zombies that got shock one too many times, the whole damn hospital is full of them. And Iron Man was one of the failures. – Dr. Odinssen never paid any price for it though. He's still here, been transferred to one of the better wards too, from what I hear. Guess he had more successes than failures. --

So what happened is, one day Nurse Romanoff called me in, me and this other orderly, Rogers. And she told us there's a new doctor coming to the ward, Dr. Laufeyson, and just like all the others, he's got a _wonderful new therapy_ that he wants to try out on some of the hopeless patients. -- You know that's why I don't like working the back wards, is because they always want to try out all their _wonderful new therapies_ on our guys here. I mean Jesus Christ, they're crazies, yeah, but does that mean nobody can ever give a shit about them? Why have they got to be everybody's experimental lab animals? And I've tried and I've tried to get transferred to one of the Acute Wards, but it's always a no-go. There's always somebody else with more education, or what they call “a more cooperative attitude”. –

Nurse Romanoff tells us, Dr. Laufeyson's going to need some help. “Barton, Rogers,” she says, “we're going to help him.” _We_ , in other words, her too. 

So Rogers says, “What does the procedure consist of?”

“Well,” Nurse Romanoff says, “Dr. Laufeyson has not informed me.” But she says he's already been successful with one case, which is Banner, who was on Ward 9 for a while, and he was so dangerous when he got angry that they had to assign three orderlies just to watch him. -- Cushy job, by the way, because the guy was a pussycat when he wasn't angry. And real fun to talk to, too. Guy was a scientist before the schizophrenia got him. -- ...Well Dr. Laufeyson treated him first, Nurse Romanoff said. “He's so much better now,” she said, “he's going home for weekend visits. Might even get released.”

After that, we met Dr. Laufeyson. And he's this tall, skinny kind of guy. He's got a thin, smart-looking face, sort of like Sherlock Holmes in the movies, and he sounds like Sherlock Holmes too. – Basil Rathbone, isn't that who plays him? – He sounds like Basil Rathbone, with one of those English accents, that makes whatever he says sound kind of high-toned and classy, even the things that make you feel sick, and kind of a little angry, when you hear them. .

Dr. Laufeyson came in, in a white lab coat, over his dark street clothes. Really fancy dark street-clothes, like something a rich guy would wear in the movies. Under a perfectly-pressed, perfectly-cleaned white lab coat. If I'd known anything about what we were going to do with Iron Man... – And not just us, Dr. Laufeyson did it too. – ...If I'd known that then, I'd have laughed at that coat, because it sure as hell didn't look so white and perfect any more when we were finished.

He looked over at Nurse Romanoff. “These are my _willing volunteers_ , Nurse?” he said. -- “Willing volunteers”: Everything had to be multi-syllable. The guy never met a short word he liked. –

“They are.” Nurse Romanoff gave Rogers and me a look like we'd better be.

We were though. We were willing. Of course we didn't have any idea what we were going to do that we had to be “willing” _for_. So Rogers and me both nodded, and Dr. Laufeyson looked pleased.

“It is a truism of psychiatric practice...” – Those were his words. I think they were at least. A Sixth Grade education and life as a carney don't train you so well for quoting these college boys. – “It is a _truism_ ,” he said, or maybe, “it's a _truth_ , that the hold of psychosis on the brain can be reversed by a severe shock to the system.”

“As in electro-convulsive therapy?” Nurse Romanoff said. That's shock treatment, by the way, for anyone else who's not up on those five-dollar words.

Laufeyson gave a snort, and he looked at her, a little angry-like. “The benefits of ECT have been _highly overstated_.” Well of course, that had been the last guy's specialty, hadn't it? He took a breath, then he went on. “ECT works by that principle, yes,” he said. “Lobotomy is the same. With both though, the failure rate is unacceptably high.” – That was where I started to like the guy, by the way. Because of what he said about there being more failures than successes with lobotomy and shock treatment. There wasn't an orderly at the hospital that didn't work every day with the failures from both of them. – “My procedure will not leave the experimental stage until it is successful 100% of the time.”

That sounded pretty unrealistic. One thing you learn working with crazies, is that there is _no_ therapy that is 100% successful. But he was the doctor, and we were support staff, even Nurse Romanoff. “Lead me to the patient,” he told us, and we led him to the patient.

Well Iron Man was the same place he always was, in the mornings. The crazies were clean, and they'd had their breakfast. Iron Man was in the dayroom with the rest of them. One of the orderlies had given him a mop like usually happens, and he was mopping the exact same spot of the linoleum over and over.

“Iron Man?” 

Nurse Romanoff said his name, and he looked up. It was one of the days he hadn't been shaved, so there was stubble on his cheeks. And he was smiling like he always does when anybody notices him, and his eyes were wide and brown. “I am Iron Man,” he said. That's mostly all he ever says.

“Iron Man,” said Nurse Romanoff, “here's a friend who wants to talk to you.”

He looked at her, and his smile changed. Just for a minute you could see something that looked like there was still somebody in there, like he was trying to flirt with her or something. “You and me,” he mumbled, or something like that, like he was trying to make time with her.

Well, he does that sometimes. It never amounts to anything, and most of the nurses are pretty nice about it. The poor guy doesn't have much fun in his life.

“Of course,” Nurse Romanoff told him. “We'll go out. We'll go to Twenty-One.”

She could have said anything. The light had already gone out of his eyes again.

Behind her, Dr. Laufeyson stepped forward. “You are Iron Man?”

There went that light back into his eyes again. “I am Iron Man.”

“I am going to give you the chance to help with an experiment, Iron Man. If we are successful, it will benefit all of humanity.”

For a change, Iron Man seemed to be following him pretty well. He was still looking at him, and there was still that same light in his eyes, and he was nodding. “Benefit,” he mumbled. “I will...”

“ _You_ will, yes,” Dr. Laufeyson said. “Together, we will relieve suffering all over the world.”

Iron Man was really doing amazingly well for him. He _got_ what the doctor was saying, he actually got it, which was more than the rest of us ever expected. And “suffering” was apparently a word he still knew, because he frowned. “S-suffering?”

Immediately, Nurse Romanoff stepped forward. “There won't be any suffering,” she said, and she patted his arm. “You will be _helping people_ , Iron Man. You want to do that, don't you?”

And he nodded, and he smiled again. And the whole time she said it, we all knew she was lying through her teeth, because there'd never been a one of these so-called “wonderful new therapies” that didn't cause suffering. A lot of suffering. We still didn't have any idea at all what we were getting ourselves in for, though. We were thinking something simple and fast, like how a lobotomy only takes maybe 15 minutes. ...How you can get a person prepped, and give them the shock, maybe it'll take a few times before you see an effect, but the times when you do it, it only takes half an hour. This was completely different.


	2. The "Experimental Procedure"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's no sense to doing this that Orderly Barton can see, but what does he know? It's a job, anyway, and right now, that's what matters.

Well there was an examining room set up, and that's where we took Iron Man. We took him down the hall. Dr. Laufeyson was in front, and then came Iron Man, with Nurse Romanoff next to him, and she had her hand on his arm. Rogers and me came last, and it was all just as easy as pie at first. Then when he saw where we were taking him, he started to pull back. It was bringing back bad memories from the shock treatments, I guess.

Rogers and I knew what our job was. We both moved on in close, one on either side. And Iron Man gave us each a look. You ever seen how a horse looks when it panics? How its eyes sort of bulge out of their sockets, and the lips draw back so you can see its big teeth? That's how he looked. “Relax pal. No one's going to hurt you.” It had to be said, and so I said it, even though I knew it was a lie. The thing is, sometimes you have to lie. There's no such thing as life without pain, and if the patients here weren't crazy, they'd get that, so you wouldn't have to lie to them. – Rogers, by the way, he never got used to the lying. He could never bring himself to do it except every once in a while, and then he suffered for it. That's why he's... Well, you don't want to know how he ended up. It's pretty depressing. –

So Iron Man looked at me, and he didn't hear the tone of my voice, or anything I said except for that last word. “H-hurt?” he repeated.

Rogers gave him a pat on the arm. “You'll be all right.” He got the lie out without too much trouble, and then he kept his hand there, so Iron Man wouldn't get away.

I'd moved in close too, and I had my hand on Iron Man's other arm. It didn't matter any more what we said, all that was registering with him was our hands on his arms, that we were real close you know, and we wouldn't let him get away. He was starting to whip his head back and forth, and he was breathing real fast, the way some of the crazies will do before they have a real outburst.

Then we got to the door, and he hadn't had an outburst yet, and Nurse Romanoff opened up the door. Inside there was a cot set up, and an examining table. And what I noticed first: There wasn't anything on the table. Fuck all, just the white cloth that had been used to cover it, and nothing else.

Nurse Romanoff noticed too, because she said, “Do you need me to fetch the equipment, Doctor?”

He looked at her, and at first there was a look of surprise on his face. Then it turned to disapproval. “What did they tell you about my procedure, Nurse?” he said.

“I ...Doctor,” she said. – I wasn't looking at her. Me and Rogers were busy just trying to keep Iron Man in the room He must not have liked all the jawing, because he was getting real restless. It never pays to do too much jawing around the crazies. It spooks 'em, just like horses. ...We were busy with him, and I heard her, but I wasn't looking at her too close for a while. She sounded pretty nervous though. No one likes having one of the doctors mad at them.

Then Laufeyson said, “This is all the equipment we'll need for my procedure.” And I looked up, and he was holding a pack of... --

You ever had a friend that likes playing practical jokes? That's what it felt like, when I looked up and I saw the pack of Trojans in the doc's hand. Condoms are funny. The idea of us using them somehow, and Iron Man being involved, that wasn't funny, but the condoms? _They_ were funny. – 

I laughed a little when I saw what was in his hand. And I heard Rogers mutter, “Safes, what's he gonna do with those?”

“Doctor, no,” Nurse Romanoff said. “You don't really mean...”

Laufeyson looked at her, and he was _all doctor_ , with that look. It was a look that said, “I'm the boss. You are going to do what I say or there _will_ be consequences.

“It was your duty to find out about the experiment,” he said. “I am not going to be deprived of assistance...” – Remember, I'm paraphrasing here. Add in about 100 more of those five-dollar words he liked, and you'll probably have it about right. – “...I am not going to be deprived of assistance in this procedure, because you did not.” And he looked around, so his glare got me and Rogers too. “Anyone who leaves this room,” he said, “may go ahead and leave the hospital as well. And do not come back, there will not be a job waiting for you here.”

That was really laying it on the line. And it was the middle of the Depression, remember. We all knew we were damn lucky to even have a job.

And Rogers spoke up first. “You don't have to threaten me.” It was blunter than I would have expected from him. Laufeyson was rubbing him the wrong way, I think. “I understand that this is an experimental procedure.”

As for me, well I'd been a part of some pretty awful things since I'd been at the hospital. I'd shoved the leather gag into guys' mouths so they wouldn't chew their own tongues off during shock treatments. I'd held down a couple of guys, – Nice guys too, and not nearly so cuckoo as Iron Man. – while the doc shoved the old icepick in to lobotomize 'em. My skin was kind of crawling this time though, I'll admit it. I was thinking about where those condoms were going to have to go, and then about how this was _Iron Man_ we were going to use 'em on afterward. You know sometimes you'll hear that all us orderlies just live for the chance to shove it into some crazy's asshole while he's in the shower? Don't believe it. They're _crazies_. It'd be like touching a retarded girl.

I didn't say anything though. I still hear from my pals with the carnival sometimes, and what I was thinking about then, was a couple of letters I'd gotten just that same week: They were touring Colorado and Kansas, and the take was way down. There was something called a “dust bowl” going on there, my friends said. None of the farmers had any money to spare any more. It was even worse down south, I remember my one buddy telling me. He said he thought they were going to have to cancel for Texas, and Oklahoma probably as well. It brought back all these memories about how uncertain the money always was, and I told myself I wasn't going back to that, no matter what happened. – I'd just bought a _flivver_ , you know? Paid cash on the barrelhead too, that's a big thing for a guy like me. –

So I stepped up too, and I said, “Boss, it won't be the lousiest thing I ever did at this hospital.”

Nurse Romanoff gave me a look when I said that. But she hadn't left either. She was busy fussing around Iron Man, trying to keep him calm, and you know, keep him from bolting. 

So the doc looked at her. “How about you, Nurse?” he said. “Are you leaving?”

And she shook her head. “No of course not,” she said. “I know this is an experimental procedure.” 

Then the doc went over into the corner. There was a movie camera there, that was the first I noticed it, was when he went and turned it on. We were gonna get filmed while we did this. I'll admit, that made me pause a little. I got to thinking about what if anybody ever saw me, and that I was slipping it into Iron Man. I had to really remind myself about the carnies, and how there wasn't any money to get from people out there any more, and they were gonna cancel _Texas_ , which used to be the best ticket sales in the country, just to keep myself standing there.

So he turned on the camera. Then he went over to Iron Man. He put one of those thin, white hands of his (those hands that I will always think of on Iron Man's hips from now on, no matter how many times I see either of them again, and of how his skin was darker than the doc's, even under his clothes) on his arm. “My friend,” he said. “Are you ready?”

And Iron Man was nodding right away, and he had that vacant smile of his again. “Benefit,” he mumbled. “You said...”

“Yes,” said the doc. “You will... _We_ will benefit all of humanity. Come.” And he took him over to the bed. “Now, take off your clothes.”

And Iron Man looked at him kind of scared. He was thinking how you had to take off your clothes before shock too, how we always put a hospital gown on the patient first. “M-my _clothes_?” he said.

Me and Rogers, we went to the doorway. If he was gonna make a run for it, we were going to be right there to stop it. But the doc never lost control. “Look around you,” he said. “You see any machines? Here.” He held up the Trojans again. “You know what these are, don't you?”

Well that got old Iron Man going, all right. If we ever find out about that guy's past, I'm laying odds he was a ladies man in a big way. He saw that box in Laufeyson's hand, and a big grin spread right across his face, and then he looked over at Nurse Romanoff, and it got even bigger.

I don't know what it was, but that grin of his made me real sad. I guess I was thinking how no woman was ever gonna be with him the way he was thinking about, again. You know what they say, “There, but for the grace of God”? What was there really, separating us and Iron Man, except for some bad luck, and a couple too many jolts of electricity to the old brain?

It never occurred to me then, for a minute, that Nurse Romanoff was gonna have to do anything with him like Rogers and me. She was there to keep him calm, is what I thought. And the doc was there to supervise. It would be me and Rogers that would be the main entertainment. And we had to make it a “shock to the system” is what the doc had said. That meant grabbing him, and holding him down... – Taking him by surprise, I mean. That was the point here, was to scare him good.

Laufeyson looked over. I don't know how he picked, but it was me he was looking at. “You'll go first,” he said.

I'd never done a man before. I mean, I could figure out the mechanics, but I'd never done it, all right? I had a picture in my mind, like one of them diagrams for putting something together: Roll the Trojan into place, I was thinking, then go in and scare old Iron Man. Give it to him so that he'll get the “shock” the doctor is talking about. I wasn't hard of course, though. How could anybody be, in a situation like that? Anybody besides a rapist, that is? I undid my trousers, let 'em drop to the floor. Then I looked over at Laufeyson. “Give me a minute, will ya?” I said.

He nodded. He looked at me kind of scornful-like, like if it had been him he'd of been ready already, but he nodded. “Be ready by the time I finish the introduction,” he said.

Well I didn't know what he meant by “introduction”. I went over to one side, out of the way. – For all that mattered, when I was going to have to go in front of the camera buck naked in another minute or two. – I gave myself a few good pulls.

Meanwhile, the doc, he goes over next to Iron Man. He was naked by then, remember? His body was skinny, and pale from how he'd been living indoors the past however many years. And he was sitting on the edge of the cot, his shoulders slumped in a little. He looked up when the doc came over, and he gave him kind of a confused, nervous little smile. Laufeyson patted him on the shoulder. Then he looked right at the camera. “Subject, 'Iron Man',” he said. 

“I am...” Iron Man started in like he always does. I wasn't looking, of course, I was ...you know, getting myself ready. I didn't see what happened, but I heard Iron Man start talking, then I heard something like a pained little yelp. Then he stopped again, just as quick.

“Subject, 'Iron Man',” the doc says again. “Subject is a white male, 40 years in age. He was admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of dementia paranoides, in 1919. Subject's condition appeared amenable to treatment...” – “Amenable to treatment”? Is that what he said? I don't remember exactly. The guy sounded like he'd swallowed a medical dictionary. Anyway, the point was, he was saying Iron Man looked like he'd get well at first. This, by the way, was a bunch of horse manure, Nurse Romanoff told me later. He looked hopeless all the time she knew him, and that was way before the other doc ever thought to give him shock. – “...Followed by a marked deterioration.” he says, “after subject was treated with electro-convulsive therapy by Dr. Thor Odinssen.”

In other words, it made him worse, not better. Doc had to be sure to point that out. Make out like whatever improvements there might be were because of his treatment. Head of the hospital at the time was an old fellow, been there as long as anyone could remember. Everyone knew he was looking out for somebody smart to take over when he retired.

...So there was Laufeyson in front of the camera, going on about “a shock to the system”, then something about how it's a mistake to rely too much on drugs and surgery, or something like that. “The best treatments are the simplest ones,” he said. “You try 'em, maybe they don't work, but it's dumb to try the riskier procedures right away.” Something like that? I don't remember all he said, but that was the gist of it.

About then is when I was ready, and I sing out, “Hey doc, I'm ready.”

He looked over, kind of a frown on his face. He wasn't happy that I'd interrupted him, I guess. Then he looked at Iron Man. “Are you ready?” Didn't make much sense, I thought. Wasn't the whole point supposed to be to give the guy a shock? Left him being the one in control though, I think that's why he said it.

Iron Man looked at him. Another nervous little nod. “I ...I am...” 

I was watching that time, and what Laufeyson did that shut him up was just give him a real evil glare. Then I was coming on over, with my John Thomas pointing straight up in the air, and one of the doc's Trojans rolled down over it.

“You're not a girl,” I say to Iron Man, “but you'll do as one for now.”

Then after that... I was supposed to give him a shock, right? That's the whole point of why I was there. Didn't make a lot of sense to me, but who was I to judge, just an ignorant orderly that never went to school like me? Most of the stuff we do to the patients here don't make a whole lot of sense. For all I knew, this was some kind of new miracle treatment. It had already worked on Banner, right?

So I took hold of Iron Man by the arm. “Get up,” I said. His head started whipping back and forth right away, and he tried hard to pull free, but I wasn't having none of it. “This is for your own good...” – Jesus, when I think of all the times I've said _that_! – “We're gonna make you all better.”

He was crying. Christ, that made me sad inside. This fellow that had to be ten years older than I was, and he's blubbering like a baby, and the tears were running down into the greyish stubble on his cheeks. And he was whimpering, “No... Hurts...” I wished I'd had one of them gags we use for the shock treatment, let me tell you. I'd have used it then.

But Rogers came over, and he helped me. “It's all right,” he said. “Relax, take it easy...” He said a lot of stuff that didn't make too much sense, sort of like how you gentle a horse. Didn't work so well, but Iron Man got a little quieter, enough that we could get him bent over the examining table, anyway. After that, I put my hands on his buttocks, and I spread 'em just as wide as I could. Then I went in, I just took him as hard as I could. And if the idea was to give him a shock, well I did that, all right. He screamed so loud you had to of been able to hear it all the way out in the dayroom. And he didn't stop screaming the entire time I was in there.

I was thinking women-women-women the whole time, just blocking his voice and blanking my mind so I could make it through to the end. Laufeyson must have thought I wouldn't make it though, because he looked over at me. “Finish him,” he said, like as if he wasn't expecting me to be able to.

Well that made me mad. “I am finishing him,” I said, “ _Doctor_.” And then I gave it to old Iron Man twice as hard, and after a while just the friction of it started to feel pretty good, and when I came, it was a good one.

And then I pulled away. And Iron Man was leaning over on the examining table, and his whole body was shivering, like. I could see blood and what had to be my fluid, running out of the back of him. Damn near made me sick. Then he looked up at me, this ...I dunno, this _hopeful_ look on his face. “Did I ...did I _help_?” he says.

I damn near puked on him. It was the worst I'd ever felt since... Well, since the first time I'd worked the shock room, I guess. Like I said, we do a lot of rough stuff here. You get hardened to it pretty fast. It's worse when they talk to you, though. “Yeah,” I told him. “You helped, Iron Man.”

He got a smile on his face when I said that. A real weak smile.

Then I heard the doc. “That was acceptable,” he said. “Go get a mop and clean up.” Me still buck-naked, and he's giving me orders. _Doctors_. 

“I'll do it,” I hear Rogers say. Then I was back where I'd left my clothes, over on the cot that was in there, that had started seeming a lot more sinister than it did at first. I wasn't the only one that was gonna do this, see? And I'd already started wondering where the others were gonna put old Iron Man while they did him.


	3. Orderly Number Two Takes his Turn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well Rogers does things his own way, but he gets away with it, see? Because the camera's rolling. Doc's got to be the one in control.

Well I looked over at the others, and they looked... You know how they say people look green, right when they're about ready to puke? It's not really green, but that's what they call it, as in “So-and-so is looking a little green around the gills,” and then right then is when So-and-so takes a heave all over your shoes. That's how Rogers and Nurse Romanoff looked, they looked green. Rogers helped me clean the floor up, though. And Nurse Romanoff got old Iron Man wiped up a little, and sat him back down on the bed.

“You okay?” she said. “You okay, Iron Man?”

And he looked at her. You could see he was trying to smile like he usually did, but he couldn't... I dunno. It didn't work, is what I mean. His face kind of moved. Then he looked down again. He didn't say anything.

Then Rogers spoke up. “I don't see that miracle cure you were talking about, Doctor,” he said.

_He_ said that., yeah. To a _doctor_. Like the guy wanted to get fired, almost. And Laufeyson looked over at him, with mean little slitty eyes. “We are _filming_ ,” he said. He looked over at Nurse Romanoff. It was her job to keep the orderlies in control, see.

“This is an _experiment_ ,” she told Rogers. “You agreed.”

“You told us we'd be helping Iron Man,” Rogers said. “That's why I agreed.”

So him and her kept on talking. They kept wrangling back and forth: “You don't think he's being helped,” from Nurse Romanoff. Then, “No,” and then, “You've worked Shock. You've helped the doctors with lobotomies. Sometimes this is what helping looks like.” Like that, see? There was an undertone of conversation, them talking like it was gonna make a difference. The whole time, I knew Rogers was going to end up doing what he was told. He wasn't a dummy, to walk away from a steady job.

Meanwhile, the doc went over to Iron Man. He was off the bed and looking around. “M-my clothes?” he mumbled, like he thought they'd be right where he left them. They weren't. Somebody, Rogers, I think, had folded them and put them on an empty chair, while I was doing ...what I did. Didn't stop him looking around for them, though.

And there came the doc: “Iron Man,” he said. “How you doing?”

Iron Man looked up at him with his eyes wide. His mouth moved, but he didn't say anything.

“You're making good progress,” the doc told him, and he patted his shoulder.

That made a smile come. “B-benefiting?” old Iron Man mumbled. “Am I...”

But Laufeyson couldn't let him keep talking like that. Not with the cameras rolling, so everyone would see he hadn't made any progress at all, and he was still just as crazy as ever. “You.” He spoke up quick to cut Iron Man off, and he gestured at Rogers, who was standing over next to me. “You go next,” he said.

And Rogers looked at him. Guy's bulging with muscles. I think he's got a gym he goes to in his off-hours. Laufeyson told him to get over there, and I saw all his muscles flex a little. “What if I don't want to?” he said.

Laufeyson looked at him with that slitty-eyed expression again. “Then you will be fired.” 

“I don't care.” Right next to him like I was, I could hear Rogers mutter it. So could Nurse Romanoff, you could tell by the nasty glare she gave him. He did care, though. Like I said, this happened during the Depression. Wasn't none of us that would have walked away from our job, not with unemployment at 25% like it was. So I saw Rogers' shoulders slump, and he went on over where the doc and Iron Man were. 

“You know, this really is gonna help you,” he tells Iron Man. – I was watching. Laufeyson smiled when he said that. He knew he'd won, see. --

Iron Man looked up at him, kind of blank like. “Help?” he said.

And Rogers, he puts his hand on his shoulder. Real kind look on his face, and he was talking to old Iron Man like he was anybody, not just a crazy that had had too many volts go through his head, too many times, to ever be of use to anybody again. “You ever get the idea that maybe you've got something _wrong_ ,” he said, “like wrong with your head?”

You could see Iron Man's eyes getting real wide, and then something came into them. It really looked like he understood what Rogers was saying. “Wrong,” he said, and then he licked his lips, and then, “This is gonna help with _that_?”

And Laufeyson's chest just expands, and his smile gets real big. Here was the orderly, saying just what he was supposed to say, and here was old Iron Man, putting on a show that said the treatment was helping.

So Rogers nodded at him. “That's the idea anyway,” he said. “We're gonna _try_ to help with it.”

And then Iron Man took a breath. And he looked back at me, this wide-eyed look like ...Well, I go back to horses. He looked like a horse that was just getting over being spooked. And what he said was _way_ more than I ever would have expected from him. “You're gonna...” He looked over at me. “Y-you're gonna do ...what he did?”

And I felt so sorry for Rogers right then. This was such a long-shot, and poor old Iron Man was such a hopeless case. We weren't helping him any, we both knew that. We were just trying to keep our own heads above water. I saw Rogers blink, like there were tears in his eyes for a second. “Yeah, Iron Man,” he said. “That's the idea.”

“But I'm gonna be real gentle,” he said. And he took old Iron Man back over to the bed, and he said “Here, lie down here.”

And Iron Man lies down, and his face was _real_ pale. And you could see his breath going in and out. “This is gonna...” You could see him swallow. “It'll hurt,” he said.

Rogers shook his head. “Not after the other time,” he said to him. “Only the first time hurts.” As if _he_ knew anything about that... Well neither of us did then, of course, on account that's not how we got our jollies. Later on I met a guy that was queer, and I asked him about it. He said probably I did a lot of damage, goin' into Iron Man so fast and hard like I did, and it would'a been a few weeks before anything _didn't_ hurt him back there, even taking a shit. Rogers didn't know none of that, though, and that was good, because that way he could sound convinced himself, and convince Iron Man.

Iron Man lies down, and he watches while Rogers takes his orderly's whites off, and his eyes go real huge when Rogers' underwear comes off too.

And then Rogers sat down next to him, and he said, “I need to be hard for this, can you...”

And I was thinking, “Can he _what_?” Because this was Iron Man, he couldn't do much of anything.

But the guy surprised me, he just reached over, and he put his hands on Roger's... On his dick, you know? ...On his John Thomas. And he started rubbing, and right before all our eyes, Rogers started to get good and hard.

And then he said, “Thanks.” Jesus Christ, but we lost a good orderly when Rogers... When ...what happened with Rogers happened afterward. Or he could'a been a nurse maybe. There are male nurses, and they're some of the best ones with the patients. If he just could'a held out a little longer... I hear Roosevelt's got a program that'll give you money to go to school. He sure would'a made a good nurse. Oh well, you know what they say, can't lock the barn door after the horse is gone. Well what happened that day, was that Rogers said “Thank you,” to Iron Man, just like he'd have said it to somebody else, somebody that wasn't crazy. And then he laid him back onto the bed real gentle like... – The pillow was too thin and flat, I remember him saying, and he asked Nurse Romanoff to go get him another one. And she _went_! I think he had us all a little hypnotized by then.

And then he moved Iron Man's knees up, and he spread his legs way apart. I got to wondering while I watched him, whether he'd maybe had a little practice at this before. You can't always tell which guys are queer. It's not just the pansies like you might think. So I got to thinking maybe Rogers was queer, or he'd had shall we say, a little bit of practice with the other team. 

...He got old Iron Man prepared, and then he got up on his knees real close, and he put his hands on his legs. “This maybe'll hurt a little,” he said.

So Iron Man started getting restive, and he said, “ _Hurt_?”

And Rogers right away, says, “No no, I won't let it hurt. Tell you what, you holler if it starts hurting.” 

Then he moved in real close again. We were standing with his back to us, so we didn't see much of what was happening. I could see Rogers getting real close, and I saw Iron Man's head start whipping back and forth on those two lousy pillows of his. And I heard him give a moan.

“Is that hurting?” Rogers said, and then, “Calm down, buddy, just calm down.”

I was watching. Over next to me were the doc and Nurse Romanoff. Doc's eyes narrowed a little. This was supposed to be a shock, see? Way Rogers was doing it, it wasn't no shock at all. He didn't say nothing, though, not with his camera rolling and pickin' up everything anybody said.

And meanwhile, Rogers must have gotten completely inside him, because you could see his hips start to rock back and forth, and there were... Well, there were _noises_. Slick-slick-slick kind of noises.

Then Rogers says, “You like this?”

And I hear Iron Man say, “Yeah.”

And Rogers says, “You can touch yourself if ya want.” Jesus Christ, the _balls_ on that guy! A nurse? That guy could'a been a _doctor_! He should'a been a doctor. You can bet he would'a figured out better treatments than that bullshit one of Laufeyson's.

So then you could see old Iron Man's hands going between his legs. He must have been touching himself, like Rogers said. And of course, who knew when was the last time he'd had any, so the fella was like dry tinder. Right away almost, he started making noises like he was about to come. Then he gave a big gasp, and his head fell back on the pillow.

And then a little bit later, it was Rogers' turn I guess, because his hips started rocking real hard, and then he gave a kind of a jerk, and a little while after that, he pulled out of Iron Man and sat back on his heels. And he gave him a little pat on the leg, and he said, “Iron Man, you done good.”

Iron Man looked up at him. You could see his face from where we were, and there was a smile on it that wouldn't quit. But when Rogers said that, about him doing good, it got bigger, and his eyes got wide and sort of dark looking. And then he said, “You too, Doctor.” Because of course he _was_ a crazy. What did he know about orderlies and doctors, and who was what?


	4. Nurse Romanoff, and the "Change in Therapeutic Direction"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doc Laufeyson's the kind of fellow that can take anybody else's good idea, and make it look like it was his own.

Well Rogers, he said, “You take care of yourself, Iron Man.”

And Iron Man said, “You too, doc,” and he smiled at him, and for just a minute there, it looked like there's somebody at home inside him. That went away quick like it always does, but it was there for a minute, and it made me feel kind of sad again.

Nurse Romanoff was feeling it too, and Rogers. I could see it on both their faces. But you know, what's the crazy part, is how Laufeyson was reacting. See Rogers had just practically turned his little experiment on its head. He'd gone in, and instead of giving old Iron Man a shock like he was supposed to, he'd given him what must have been the best experience he'd had in a long time. He'd treated him like a man again, instead of like a mental patient. And he'd taken the time to make him comfortable, and happy, and he was the one that had had an effect on him. Iron Man sure wasn't helped by anything I did to him.

So you'd think the doc would be mad, right? But no. You should'a seen the look on his face, while Rogers was talking to Iron Man after ...well after, _you know_. He was grinning, and his eyes were sparkling. “Another kind of shock,” He was saying, and something about, “Different types of approach for different mental disorders.”

Then he looked over at Nurse Romanoff, and he said, “Get in there.” 

Her eyes got real wide. “ _Me_?” she said. “But I'm a nurse.” Because, you know, it's supposed to be us orderlies that do all the dirty work.

So he looks at her. “Are there any female orderlies in the men's hospital?” 

Well there weren't, of course. A gal wouldn't last half a day in here with some of the male patients we got. So Nurse Romanoff shook her head. Then her eyes got wide again, as she figured out what the doc was getting at.

Then, “Get in there,” he said again. “This is a fascinating new development, and I need more data.”

He meant because Rogers being gentle did Iron Man so much good. He was gonna have other people go in and be gentle with him too, maybe a lot more people. ...At least Nurse Romanoff, after her, however many more people it was gonna take, to where he could say old Iron Man was cured. He wasn't gonna be cured, of course. Crazies usually aren't. You ever met an ex-mental patient that didn't seem like he still had some screws loose? Because I sure haven't. ...If he could get him cured _enough_ , though. – Enough so he could send him home like he'd done Banner. – that was gonna look real good for him, when they were choosing the next Head of the Hospital.

“More data.” The doc waves at me. “Go get me a notebook and a pencil.”

I run out the door double-quick. I missed whatever happened next, so I don't know if Nurse Romanoff put up any fuss about being used for an experiment, like she was an orderly, or not. I came back, and she was walking over to Iron Man. Her shoulders were drooping, and she wasn't moving too fast, but she was doing it.

From where I was standing, I only saw her back, but she was unbuttoning her dress already, I could tell by how Iron Man was reacting. He was on the bed, looking up at her, and his eyes were getting real wide. “Nurse?” he said. “N-nurse?”

“Yeah, Iron Man?” says Nurse Romanoff (her voice sounding kind of scared maybe).

And old Iron Man starts looking all around. You could see his hands, and he was picking at the sheet on the cot, real nervous-like. “I... I'm not supposed to,” he said. “Against the _rules_.”

Later on Nurse Romanoff told us there'd been some incidents, back when Iron Man was new at the hospital, back before Doc Odinssen got the idea to use the shock on him. She'd seen him get in trouble a few times. Probably there'd been more times before that.

“It's okay, Iron Man,” she says. “You're supposed to do it this time.” – _It_. You know, from all the way across the room, I could hear the poor guy's breath hitching. He knew what “it” was as well as any of us. -- Then she kind of shrugged, and down went her dress off of her shoulders. “There's a promotion in this for me, right doc?” she calls out.

And across the room, Laufeyson nodded. “As soon as I'm named Head of the Hospital. Now get on with it.”

I'll tell you what, Nurse Romanoff _got on with it_! One minute she's all dressed, except her dress is off her shoulders, the next minute she's bare-assed naked, with nothing but her brassiere left on. She's a fine looking woman too. Not a lot of meat on her bones maybe, but what there is, is choice.

And Iron Man noticed that too. Listen, I don't know what that guy was like before ...well, before everything that had happened to him. Did he really used to attack women all the time, like what Nurse Romanoff said? I dunno, I guess I don't see why she would lie about that. He didn't look like he was planning on attacking anybody now, though. He looked... Well, he looked like something real magical was happening for him. Which it was, if you think about it. When was a guy like him gonna make time with a gal like Nurse Romanoff anyplace outside of this experiment? And first his eyes got real big-like. And then, well then it was like something changed inside of them, like a light turned on or something. “Beautiful...” He muttered it, like how he always talks. It sounded like something he'd said to somebody else sometime before. “You're so beautiful.” He put out one hand, and he just touched her brassiere real gentle. “You want me to help you with that?”

She looked back at Dr. Laufeyson. What was she thinking? I got no idea. He wasn't even looking at her, just scribbling away in that notebook I brung him. Then Nurse Romanoff looked up again. She squared her shoulders, and she took a breath. “Sure, Iron Man,” she said. 

“Tony...” Did he really say it? I thought I heard it. And so did the doc too, I know because I heard him take a breath, real excited-sounding. Fellow must'a thought that Headship was in the bag, about then. “Call me Tony.”

“Sure, _Tony_ ,” she said. “You help me.”

And he reaches in real gentle, and he moves her hair out of the way. He undoes the hooks up her back, and he lifts the brassiere away. Then he kisses her real soft, first on one bare breast, then on the other.

Then... Well what happened after that was kind of sweet actually, as sweet as it could be, considering what was happening. What happened... It was sick as hell, of course. It was an experiment, so it was all dressed up with medical language, but what it really was, was a lady having sex with a guy, and all the rest of us, just standing around watching. But Iron Man played it totally straight the whole time, and so did Nurse Romanoff, which is saying something, since she understood what was happening, and he didn't. He was real gentle with her... And more than that, he kind of flirted with her a little. You remember, how I said I thought he was probably a ladies' man, back before everything that happened?

He laid her down real nice, and he fussed over her. “Oh Nurse,” he was saying... Then he looks at her, kind of questioning.

“Natasha...” What in the world was she thinking? It was like his reality had become her reality. “My name is Natasha.”

And, “Oh Natasha,” he says. “Oh, your red hair shines so nice in the moonlight.” – When there wasn't any moonlight. – “Oh Natasha, your skin is so _white_.”

Poor old Iron Man, he was having a _good_ old time, and Nurse Romanoff just sort of went along with it. He took her, and he was a real gentleman about that too, always stopping, and asking her was it good for her, and so on. If she was your daughter, and it was her first time, he's the kind of fellow you'd want her have it with. ...Well, someone that acted like how he was acting then, I mean. Someone that wasn't crazy.

Then when he was done, he offered her a cigarette. “You want a cigarette,” he says, and he reached out. I think he thought for a minute that there'd be a nightstand there, that it would have all the usual stuff a fellow keeps on his nightstand, his watch you know, his glasses maybe, and his cigarettes. Only there wasn't, of course, and you could see his face change. All the ladies' man went out of it, and it was just poor old Iron Man again. He looks at her, then he looks at the doc. “I...” He was whispering. “W-What did I do?”

“It's all right,” Nurse Romanoff started. 

Then the doc interrupted her. “You did _great_ , Iron Man!” he said. And he rushed on over.

“Benefitin'?” Iron Man said. “I was...”

Laufeyson talks all over him too. “You bet you are,” he said. “We're both benefiting the hell outa humanity here.” Then he starts in on this spiel. – He musta wrote it out while Nurse Romanoff was doing what she did with Iron Man. – Whole new spiel about how “Subject, Iron Man,” was already “damaged”, by the “invasive therapy” his last doc had used on him, “by mistake”, and so “of course” gentler methods were called for than what had worked so good on the subject in the last experiment. Whole spiel to make it look like Rogers and Nurse Romanoff being gentle was his idea in the first place, not theirs, – Doc's a good hand with the lies, I'll tell you what. – and he just _knew_ it would work, right from the start. Then he looked down at Iron Man, like he was sizing him up.

“One more time,” he says. “I think one more time'll about do it.”

And you know, maybe the treatment really was working a little, because old Iron Man seemed to catch on to what he was saying right away. “One more...” I saw his eyes flick over at Nurse Romanoff for a minute. Then he looked at me, kind of scared-like. “One more of _what_?”


	5. "One More Go-Round"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doc Laufeyson gets another go-round, and Iron Man gets a cure ...sort of. And Rogers... Well, you don't want to know what he gets.

Well we was all thinking when the doc said “One more time,” he meant one more time that same day. We was all thinking, “We've all been with Iron Man already. Who does that leave?” Because the doc sure wasn't gonna do it. Laufeyson _hated_ touching Iron Man. He hated being anywhere near him. You watch that movie he was filming, I bet you'll be able to see how his face wrinkled up every time he got close to him, like he was smelling something bad or something. He wanted the experiment to go good all right, but I don't think he'd'a gone with Iron Man himself, if he could'a got the Headship just by doing that.

Turned out though, what he meant was he was gonna call old Iron Man back for one more of the whole go-round. And before you're thinking it was gonna be just the same, me and Nurse Romanoff, and Rogers? He only wanted Rogers to be with him this time. Said he was the one that had “gotten the good results.” He had a... A “rapport”, I think is the word he used. Rogers and Iron Man had a good “rapport”.

And I remember I saw Rogers start looking kinda sick when he said that. He didn't want to go with Iron Man in the first place, you remember. He was just about to walk out the door, even though it would'a meant his job. Only now he couldn't, see? Because now he'd sort of become Iron Man's protector. He was the one he went to, when there was problems. –

Funniest thing in the world, how that worked out on the ward, by the way. Or it seemed funny at the time, anyway, now, not so much. Old Iron Man just sort of lit up, whenever Rogers was around. And he followed him everywhere, just like a puppy. He ended up getting a job on the ward. He was the one that put the magazines in order on the magazine rack, I think that's what it was. All the four or five magazines we had, at the time, and most of them a few years old, and missing pages or maybe the cover. Iron Man'd go around the dayroom, fetching them things. As soon as somebody finished one of them, he'd be right there to put it away just so. ...But only when Rogers was on duty. The rest'a the time, there was nobody at home just like always, and we'd make him mop. –

Me and Nurse Romanoff weren't home free, or nothing. We still had to be there to help. It was our job to go get Iron Man out of the dayroom. And we brought him to an examining room, just like the last time. Camera was all set up and everything. Doc turns it on.

“Subject,” he says, just like the first time, “Tony...” He looks over at Nurse Romanoff. “Tony what? What did he say his last name was?”

“He didn't,” she said.

So he started again: “Subject, Iron Man. He is a white male... blah-blah 40 years in age... Blah-blah dementia paranoides... Something-something, recent treatment, significant progress...” And then the part about how he'd developed a “rapport” with Orderly, Steven Rogers.

Well Rogers just waited until Layfeyson stopped the camera for a minute, and then he said, “If he's already better how come I have to do this again?”

Doc looked at him like he was a bug on the floor, just this look of pure, snooty contempt, like, “Do you dare question _me_ , you sniveling mortal?” – “Mortal”. Heh. Don't know why I said that. – Well the doc gives Rogers a snooty look. “You're going to compromise the experiment,” he said. “Do you want that?” 

And Nurse Romanoff said, “You been with him practically this whole past week anyway. What's so hard?”

So Rogers looked over at Iron Man. He was just standing there in the middle of the room looking confused. He put his hand on his shoulder and kind of patted him like. “Because he deserves some respect,” he said. 

Iron Man deserved respect. A mental patient. A crazy. Put a whole new perspective on what we were doing, for me at least. Made me kind of uncomfortable to be there. I think Nurse Romanoff felt it too. She couldn't show it though. – Well neither of us could. Not when the doc wanted us there, doing this. – “We get him better,” she said, “we'll be giving him a lot of respect.”

Doc nodded, and he kind of motioned over to Rogers. Like he was saying, “Go to it already, what's keeping you?”

Then Rogers sighed, but he didn't say no. He couldn't, you know, any more than any of us could. He took Iron Man over to the cot, helped him get his clothes off and whatnot. You want to hear something funny? I could watch it, the first time he was with him. I mean I didn't like it or anything. That's never been how I get my jollies, watching other people, especially other men. And especially not when one of them's a crazy, like Iron Man. But I _could_ watch, is what I mean. I was just there, and it was just an experiment. I'd seem worse things when I was working Shock, that's for sure.

This time I literally couldn't watch. I tried. By about the time Rogers was helping Iron Man unbutton his shirt, I could feel my face getting red. Then I had to turn away. – I didn't dare look over and see if Nurse Romanoff was turned away too. I didn't want the doc to notice that I was. I think she was, though. I think this embarrassed her as much as me. – 

I could still hear 'em. “You okay, Iron Man... – _Tony_?”

Iron Man said, “Yes.”

“You comfortable like that? Want another pillow?”

“No... Uh, doc...”

“Steve,” Rogers said. “Call me Steve.”

“Steve,” says old Iron Man, “hold me. Can ya hold me?” – I'm thinking, “This is _gold_ for the doc. This is just what he needs.” – 

Then Rogers, “Like that? Like that, Tony?” And then after that, some noises I won't describe to you, some noises that _left nothing to the imagination_ , if you know what I mean. There was a lot of “Oh, ohing,”, and some “Please's,” and some other things I didn't want to think about too much.

Then there were some “Aahh's,” that told me they were finished. I didn't look back right away. I gave 'em time to get dressed, and for Rogers to clean up a little from whatever he'd been doing. When I looked back, everything was tidy again, and Laufeyson was marching over there.

“You did _great_ ,” he was telling Rogers. “You'll probably get a raise.”

Rogers snorted a little. “When you're Head of the Hospital?” he said.

“Yeah,” doc says. “When I'm Head of the Hospital.”

“And me,” old Iron Man says. “Am I...”

Then Rogers interrupted, before the doc could even answer: “You're benefiting humanity all right, Tony,” he said. I dunno. There was something funny in his voice when he said it. Even Iron Man noticed, and he gave him a strange look. But Rogers just gives him another pat on the shoulder. “It's all right, Tony,” he says. “We're both just doin' what we have to do, here.”

Just doing what they had to do, yeah. That's what they were doing. That's what me and Nurse Romanoff were doing too. We were all doing what we had to do, and it was Laufeyson that was calling the shots the whole time. Then it was over. I don't know about the others, but I was feeling kind of sad for some reason, when I left the room.

I would'a felt even more sad, if I'd been able to look into the future. See, after we finished that second time, doc said he was real pleased with Iron Man's progress... – I think that's how he put it, “Real pleased with the patient's progress.” It sounds like him, but I wasn't there to hear. Only Rogers was there, him and Nurse Romanoff, and she told me about it afterward.

Doc told 'em on the Friday after the second go-round. Said it was only gonna take the two of them for the third time, because old Iron Man was “such a cooperative patient.” Then Rogers goes off-duty, and he goes home...

He goes home and... – He was in the War, see? Infantry. 10th Mountain Division. He came home, guess he brought his gun with him, because he had one at the house when this happened. See, he went home that Friday, and I guess he couldn't stand the thought of what he was doing to old Iron Man. He sticks that gun up against his head, and... Well, it wasn't pretty.

He survived though, see? I think that's the worst part. If he could'a just done the job right... Anyone that knows anything, knows you put the gun in your mouth. That's how you make sure you got the aim right. Rogers didn't have the aim right, and he survived, but with part of his brain blown away, so after that he was turned into an idiot. 

And you know where idiots go, well of course, they come here to the hospital. He done some time in the medical ward first, getting his injury taken care of. Then when they moved him here, he was in a wheelchair. Couldn't eat by himself, no control over his bowels or nothing.

You know who recognized him, is Iron Man. He saw him come into the dayroom, and he goes right over. “Oh _Steve_ ,” he says. “Steve, are you okay?”

Then that woke up whatever was left of Rogers' mind, and he looks up, and he says, “Tony?”

And after that, we gave old Iron Man a different job... – No, we didn't give it to him, he up and _demanded_ it. – From then on, he took it as his job takin' care of Rogers, and he did a real good job of it too. Made sure he got his food at mealtimes, came and told one of us orderlies whenever he needed changing, saw to it he wasn't left in the dayroom on Movie Night, and all like that.

I hear Doc Laufeyson said it was because he was so cured, that he was able to do all that. – You know, completely ignoring that it was because of his experiment that Rogers needed it done in the first place. – I dunno. If there was a cure, I think it was Rogers' doing. He could of made it happen, with or without the doc's experiment, if he'd been given the chance. – Guess that's where the experiment came in: That was the doc, giving him a chance (and look what came of him, when he took it). – 

Anyways though, we got Rogers and Iron Man on Ward 9 now. – Same dormitory. Seems Iron Man's can't be separated from his friend even when he's asleep. – Nurse Romanoff and me are still right here too. As for the doc, he's still trying for Hospital Head, him and Doc. Odinssen, and some others. – Same fellow that's always been there, he's still there. Says he doesn't “feel like retirin' yet.” – They've moved him to one of the acute wards though, and that's a promotion. Guess it's his “miracle cure” that's got him that. I wonder if he's trying it on any of the patients where he is now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not consider this story a complete success. The characterization is right, though (It would have been wrong, if I'd mangled the characters to make them do what I had planned originally). I'll just have to take another crack at the theme again later, so hopefully I can get the other details to go right as well.


End file.
